Stitt

When Woodrow Wilson lay stricken in the White House, among other names appended to the official bulletins issued, the public came to know that of Edward R. Stitt, Rear Admiral, Surgeon General of the U. S. Navy. Last week, Doctor-Admiral Stitt addressed the Medical Society of the District of Columbia. He had in mind the convention, next spring, of the Congress on Internal Medicine, when he said: "I look to this society of physicians to keep us from drifting into the methods of Egyptians, of whom it is stated: 'Medicine is practiced among them on a plan of separation. Each physician treats a single disorder and no more; thus the country swarms with medical practitioners, some undertaking to cure diseases of the eye, others of the head, others, again, of the teeth, others of the intestine, and some those which are not local.' . . . . "The present system of recent graduates in medicine, or I might almost say medical students, starting in as specialists, is all wrong. "The general practitioner should do much of the work now fenced off for specialists, and in that way we would need fewer specialists, and of these only those who were exceptionally qualified." The Surgeon-General is himself a specialist in tropical diseases. He studied at the London School of Tropical Medicine, after taking his M.D. at Pennsylvania, and taught that subject in several universities as well as in the U. S. Naval Medical School. He was appointed Surgeon General of the Navy in 1920.